Bitou keeps water flowing with load shedding grant
Bitou is one of only 12 municipalities in the Western Cape that has spent 100% of its emergency load shedding relief fund aimed at curbing the impact of rolling nationwide blackouts as a result of continuing Eskom woes.
Bitou Mayor Dave Swart said one of the biggest issues with load shedding is keeping the water flowing to residents during outages.
In March this year, the Western Cape government made R88,6m available for municipalities in the province under the emergency municipal load shedding relief grant.
Bitou Municipality received a R5,6m share of this. Swart said the funds were used to procure generators for areas that still needed capacity to supply water and sanitation services during load shedding.
He added that, at a Western Cape Provincial Parliament ad hoc committee meeting on the Eskom energy crisis last week, municipalities provided updates on how this money had been spent to date.
"Bitou was one of only 12 municipalities that had already spent 100% of this grant money in the six months since it was awarded. Other municipalities are still in the procurement and installation process."
He said the generators had been installed at pump stations across Bitou and have enabled the municipality to provide water to its residents during load shedding.
One of the locations where a generator was installed is the Roodefontein Dam Bulk Raw Water Pump Station, which received a 400 KVA diesel generator. The Uplands Keurbooms River Bulk Raw Water Pump Station also received a new 650 KVA diesel engine for a generator that was previously installed. The Kurland Wastewater Treatment Works, Cutty Sark water reservoir and elevated towers, Ebenezer water reservoir and elevated tower and the Kwanokuthula water reservoir and tower all received 150 KVA generators. The municipal depot also received a 100 KVA generator.
"This now allows Bitou to provide water during load shedding to 21 196 households, including 4 131 indigent households," Swart said.